How to: Make your own Mods

[funforfree99 5]

Hmmm seems a strange case. Make sure to back up simcity_1.dat to the desktop before you start is probably the best bet. As for reinstalling just back up the simcity 4 folder in my documents and place it back in the right place.

 

Should of remembered the backing up instructions at the start.

[+Guest]

No problem funforfree99, I know modding is at my own risk.
But the strange thing is: I did back up my SimCity_1.dat, and replaced it later, but it didn't restore the game!

As for the demand raise: the amount of Co$$$-jobs in my 5K-city stabilized at 20K, which kind of makes sense .. I counted the total amount of population and jobs in my small region, and discovered that before the demand raise I had 128.806 pop., and only 88.485 jobs! So somehow, by modding the hospital, I must have raised all demand caps for Co!

I'm sorry for this pretty much offtopic talk .. I could make a new topic of this issue if you'd prefer.

[xcalbier 43]

INFO YOU NEED.Ok so now everones doing there own mods but what to do when we make a mistake lolol.come on people im no computer genius .so is made a new WORD pad file and put all the values (numbers that im goin to change there that way if something goes wrong i can just change the numbers back to the oringal.Also wile i dont have a clue what the numbers mean in of them self i tdo know what they translate into in the game.

    for instance 0x00000BB8=3000 thats the number of kids that my kto8 school holds and i just used that for the high school it worked just fine no gessing invelved.numbers with 0x00000000.

thats nine 0 and a x are compasty numbers in other words how manny sims .just the last 3 or 4 0 is what gets changed.

now the easy thing to do is find the numbers were we know what there being used for like the schools and the health centers and the cost of almost everthing .

   wright them down find the files then wright the (HEX)?is that what the numbers in the files are called? and wala . you can now mod without messing up as much .

   heck i changed the water tower output this way easly i just put the numbers from the water pumping station into the water tower now i have water towers that give me 20,000 insted of 2,000.To the guys teaching us this thanks .

DO the capasty numbers have different effects i other files?

like the schools being 0x00000BB8 if you changed the sudway capasty to this would it give you 3000 capasty in the subway as well?

[+Guest]

Hmm, I just reinstalled my SC4 and everything went back to normal (thank god), and I started modding again
Now, this time I modded about the exact same thing (only the Large Medical Centre's capacity and radius), and this happened:



How weird is that?

I think I'll stick to the pre-made mods for now ..

/edit: This effect didn't change after I restored the SimCity.dat file. The hospitals were back to normal, but the commute time flew up anyway. This really puzzles me. Well, I'm off reinstalling. Again.

[marlin32 0]

Frggl

I had this happen to me. Two of almost every Icon and demand got all messed up. Some body found out that if you make a copy of the "simcity_1.dat" file you have another file called "copy of simcity_1.dat". somehow this confusses the game and it appears that it tries to read from both files and things go funny. I deleted the copy and everything went back to normal.

[marlin32 0]

Fuforfree:

Would you go throug the Lesson number 7. The airport modifications again for me. I am missing something. The only capacity I can find is for preview. The one that when you put the cursor over the icon it shows capacity. Is this the same one?

And what do you mean by
5. Copy the last stages for medium and large internationals?
I can not find any capactiy in these two at all.

[builderman 3]

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On 5/29/2003 9:16:00 AM marlin32 wrote:

Some body found out that if you make a copy of the "simcity_1.dat" file you have another file called "copy of simcity_1.dat". somehow this confusses the game and it appears that it tries to read from both files and things go funny. I deleted the copy and everything went back to normal.

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Really, I have to try this.

[+Guest]

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On 5/29/2003 9:16:00 AM marlin32 wrote:

Frggl

I had this happen to me. Two of almost every Icon and demand got all messed up. Some body found out that if you make a copy of the "simcity_1.dat" file you have another file called "copy of simcity_1.dat". somehow this confusses the game and it appears that it tries to read from both files and things go funny. I deleted the copy and everything went back to normal.

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Thanks marlin, this really helped me! I guess this was the problem.

[+Guest]

funforfree99, I have a little addition to your Fire/Police station modding:

If you want to increase or decrease the monthly cost of your Civic Building, you can do so by editing the variable "Budget Item, Cost".

With buildings with an additional monthly cost, such as schools and medical buildings (school bus and ambulance funding), there are 2 values to edit. The first value is the building's monthly cost, the second is the additional monthy cost.

Additionaly, you can edit the value "Monthly Cost , preview" to edit the cost shown when clicking the build-icon.

In my game I doubled the capacity of my Medical Centers, and to compensate this I doubled the monthly cost as well. I did the same for the ambulance funding. I doubled the radius, but also the cost. Putting the funding to $ 200 will now make the radius as big as its maximum original circle. But I can now increase the funding to 400 and double the radius. The game stays balanced this way.

/edit: hmm, I was wrong here. There seems to be a minimum radius which doubles its size when I double the normal radius size. This way, if funding is set to 0, the radius is twice as big as it used to be .. needs some work.

[+Guest]

I just ran into another problem: like I said I increased the monthly cost of the medical buildings, and a weird thing happens: The Medical Centers and Clinics raise their own funding! If I put the slider down, it automatically creeps up, and in about 3 months the funding is back to maximum! Does anyone know how to fix this?

[builderman 3]

The problem you are referring to is really strange. I believe it may have been talked about in the phantom sliders thread. Not sure though.

[funforfree99 5]

Now ladies and gentlemen I present

 

Lesson 7 (reviewed edition) The airport mods.

 

1. Get to examplar tree

2. Find in park the value named airport international 1

3. Go to the very bottom of this set and edit the value named lotconfigdoconstruction change the value from 0x01 to 0x00 (stops need for construction) This can be reversed in buildings that do not need construction i.e. The empire state building.

4. This next stage I will need help with. In my original post I produced instructions to edit capacity however this just changes what we are told is the capacity when creating an airport. Any one going to tell me where I can find true info on this.

5. Save close and test.

 

Goodbye again

[funforfree99 5]

Lesson x The testing process.

 

This I feal is necessary as I am constantly asking for people to test the mods they have created. I would ask you to create a simple test city (small size) with nothing more than a few blocks of residential connected by a long road to a few blocks of industrial. These can be powered by wind power plants. Save this city just the once and be prepared to keep adding to it.

 

When actually adding features keep them close to both areas and query them to test capacity. If they provide additional features (like dispatch) test these.

 

Quit without saving and make any changes you feel necesary.

 

Repeat whenever you have changed something in the game

 

[xcalbier 43]

HI. I have started moding my files in simcity no problem.But i when i view a file like the large health center i dont see anything that says radis in other words what word is the radis? I see plop cost i see item mounthly cost as well.BUT what is radis UNDER . HELP please.

[funforfree99 5]

Excalibur,

 

The exact name for this value in ilive version 4.5 is "Health building : Radius of effect (x16)". This is what you need to find in the values.

 

From funforfree99

[xcalbier 43]

thank you fun now let me ask you one more thing when you click on radis to open the box that lets youchange the numbers is the only number you have to change the one in the bottom box ? it showes two numbers one in the bottom box another next to values thats in the tan part.

[funforfree99 5]

Excalibur,

 

The only value that can be edited will be a float (number.decimal numbers) this won't be too hard to edit. In my game it's set to 1111.000.

[toroca 160]

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On 5/28/2003 4:07:34 PM Frggl wrote:

By the way:

http://www.geocities.com/binary_converter/"

>here is a nice little Decimal/Hexadecimal converter to calculate values. For example, I wanted my Medical Center to have a Patient Capacity of 9000, so I entered 2328 as value for Capacity and Patient Cap. in the dat-file.

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If you're using Windows, you don't need a converter, because Calculator can do it easily. Just set it on Scientific Mode, select "Dec" (Decimal) and enter the number you want for a capacity or whatever. Say 5,000. Now, simply click "Hex" and it will do the conversion for you. In this case, it gives a result of 1388.

It can also convert from Hex to Decimal mode, although it's a bit tricky to do negative numbers. It tends to screw up the conversion from Hex to Dec with negatives. There's a way around it, but I've forgotten for the moment.

[funforfree99 5]

Lesson 10. Modding the rest of the residential, commercial and industrial buildings.

 

1. get to the examplar tree and find residential

[Lockjaw 0]

I didn't really understand this part of increasing fire police:

"4. Lets start with radius. Double click radius of effect and edit the value to 11111. clack apply and lets make this a strong radius.
5. You should be able to find two other radius values (center and outer strength) simply edit these two to be equal (using of course your center valueas both)"

I edit center and outer strength to be equal to what? 11111? any number I choose? BTW thanx for the tutorials .

[B-Tek01 0]

The signed integers (negative numbers) are eloquently explained here by Buggi.

 

Lockjaw, the higher the number the stronger  I'm not sure what the unit of measurement is for strength (in %, perhaps?).

[funforfree99 5]

Having looked at the hex coding for this value it would not make sense for it to be a percentage. the line ends in C8 which is translated to 200. Therefore it would make a fire station twice as efective as it should be. Which is unbalanced. Default values for the game should be balanced.

[Pooty 228]

I load up my SimCity1_.dat file but there is no tree in the analyser or anything! Whats happening!

 

 

*EDIT* NEVERMIND! I got it!!!!

[Pooty 228]

Ok...heres my dilemma:

I load up simcity_1.dat and everything works.

I tried edit all the ordinances to my liking and I saved it.

Then i turn on my SimCity 4 and turn on one of my ordinances but i see no difference.

Is it the way i edited the ordinance or what?

 

The ordinance i used was Clean Air Act. It was supposed to take away all the pollution but there was no change. can someone help me?!??!?

[funforfree99 5]

I will assume that you HAVE editted the value named % effect on air polution. I will  now need to ask. did you realise that you want to change the value to 0 i.e you will recieve 0% of the air pollution of the past. if you set it to 1 you would get the same amount as always.

 

While we are on ordinances I present the ultimate ordinance. with the capability to bosst EQ HQ lower crime increase IH demand kill all ID demand kill polution and earn 50000 per resident per month.

 

Ladies and gentle men for your pleasure welcome to appendix 1

 

The mega ordinance.

 

1. get to the examplar tree and find an ordinance to edit. I am starting with clean air act.

2. edit the two existing properties (% on air pollution and % effect on ID demand) to 0 each

3. Now to add more values If you right click in the value box you should see "add property" this is what we want so click on it and an editor window will appear. simply choose the apropriate value in the top box for example find % effect on crime. and choose it. for this example just put in float as its type and click on the edit box. enter 0. click accept.

4. Repeat the step above for any othert values you feel necesary and use previous knowledge to edit its cost.

5. save close cross your fingers close your eyes and test.

 

see you again soon

[Pooty 228]

what does the button "record" do?

[writerap 0]

Hmm... I'm having trouble just with lesson #1! Maybe I'm a little slow here, but I followed the lesson exactly and when I clicked on the smoke detector ordinance, it didn't bring in 5000 per resident, but it increased the cost of my budget instead. Has anyone else encountered that problem and if so, how was it fixed?

Thanks funforfree99! I'm sure this will be a great way of enhancing the game experience once I get the hang of it.

[ed_diaz 10]

Pooty,the record button is used when you want to create a "patch" for others to use.. say you change an ordiance and you want to share that with everyone else.. then you press record.. change whatever your going to change.. then press record again to stop. then go to file and choose save recorded exemplars. and vola that'll make a ".kbi" file for others to apply.

[eklinsb 1]

I love this! I can change my game to fit my desires!!!! Finally I can build a city that doesn't need 20 power plants!

(I changed the coal power plant to a max capacity of 100,000) hehehe

Did I mention I love this!

Oh, by the way, I had to walk a long way to get to school when I was a kid, so I made the school radii MUCH bigger

[ed_diaz 10]

yea i changed my entire game and how it runs.. back in jersey my school and highschool where 1.5 MILES AWAY! i had to take the bus or if i walked i would get there in about 15mins-20mins.and yet in the game a ele school has a radius of just afew blocks!! C'MON NOW. i changed the radius of my ele schools. highschools.hospitals, fire and police. to a more realistic radius . who has ever seen a HOSPITAL with a radius of just half a mile?? clinics have larger radius then that for crying out loud lol.  give me a break.